Work On Retaining Wall Almost Complete
The civic body initiated water release into the Mutha right bank canal on Sunday evening to strengthen supply to the eastern parts of the city.
“The water is expected to reach Cantonment water works late on Sunday night. There, it will undergo a purification process and will be available for pumping on Monday morning. The water will be then supplied to the residential areas. With this, we are hoping to streamline the supply to the eastern parts of Pune,” an official from the PMC’s water supply department said.
Parvati water works is 6km away from the Cantonment facility.
The decision to release water was taken after the repair and construction work of the retaining wall — near the breach — neared completion. The work had begun on Thursday after a 15m portion of the wall in the Janata Vasahat area collapsed, causing heavy floods in the Dandekar bridge area and slum pockets. The irrigation department had immediately stopped water release into the canal.
V G Kulkarni, head of the PMC’s water supply department, said water was released at the rate of 50 cusecs from 5pm on Sunday. “There is little scope for the released water to hamper the ongoing repair work. Checks were conducted on Sunday. The water release will continue for a few days,” he said.
On Saturday, the PMC had attempted to release water into the canal. However, it was stopped after officials noticed that the water hampered repair work. The released water was diverted into a nullah to avoid any damage to the repaired portion.
The diversion had, however, sparked panic among locals, who saw the increased flow of water.
Cantonment water works gets about 350 MLD of water daily through the pipeline and canal. But since the canal’s closure, the supply had dropped to 200-250 MLD, causing water shortage in many parts of the city.
Officials in the state irrigation department on Sunday said barring concreting of the upper portion of the breached portion of the wall, most of the work pertaining to the foundation and the first-layer reconstruction was completed by Sunday evening.
“We continued the repair work throughout the night. The construction of the wall at the breached portion will be finished by Monday. This wall will require the support of soil. We have started the deposition of soil from Sunday and will continue this through Monday,” a senior official in the irrigation department said.
Many housing societies in Ahmednagar Road and Hadapsar continued to face the water shortage even on Sunday. Water tankers failed to meet the needs, even as taps ran dry. The civic administration faced difficulty in meeting the huge demand with its limited fleet.
Source : TOI
